Up to 50 people could be entitled to compensation after bitumen on a recently resurfaced road in far north Queensland melted around car tyres, causing traffic chaos and damage to vehicles.

The Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR) was forced to close the Malanda Millaa Millaa Road near Tarzali on the Atherton Tablelands on Wednesday and undertake emergency repairs after receiving several complaints.

"We were stopped by police at Tarzali 10 kilometres from our destination because cars were broken down covered in tar, with it coating their wheels.

"Then police diverted us an hour through more roadworks with idiots driving high speeds through the gravel and spraying our car with rocks."

The department said the tarmac was resurfaced last week by transport contractor COLAS Australia, but became damaged due to wet weather.

District director Sandra Burke said the extreme hot temperatures that followed caused the surface to melt.

"It's a combination of factors," she said.

"We have extreme weather conditions on Malanda Millaa Millaa Road … unusually cold weather and wet weather combined with works at hand and the short impact of the hot weather yesterday caused the situation to occur."

"I have never seen anything like it and when the reports started coming through yesterday it was just incredible," he said.

"Last week a whole section of road was done by a Main Roads contractor and the gravel they put down on top did not adhere to the bitumen.

"We started getting reports in the middle of last week from people getting stones and gravel flying up everywhere so we've been trying to assist Main Roads as much as possible, we helped with brooms to get the gravel off.

"That was when we had cold weather and drizzle, since the weekend we've had the exact opposite and the bitumen, and the way I understand it, because there's no gravel, it's leading to vehicles galore with this massive amount of tar."

The owner of a nearby tyre repair service Vince Whalley said about a dozen customers came in after traversing the road, needing their tyres replaced.

"They become very unsafe. The tar coming off the tyres itself is knocking bumper bars loose, knocking panels underneath," he said.

"They have got tar up to an inch, inch and a half thick on them so we can't clean the tyres up, we've got to replace them.

"This would be the first time I've ever seen anything like it."

Mr Whalley said one tourist travelling through the region for school holidays was forced to pay $1,200 for a new set of tyres.

"There are so many innocent people caught in this and if anyone who has damage to their vehicles to do with the failure of these roadworks need to contact Main Roads," Cr Paronella added.

"I would certainly be talking to the department about possible compensation."